Talk:Vietnam mouse-deer/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Usernameunique (talk · contribs) 06:50, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Lead

• an even-toed ungulate — Whatever this means, it appears only in the lead.

• In all articles I have written on ungulates, I have found there is no general requirement as such to stress upon this fact in the main text. It is simply a taxonomic classification we are referring to (the order) which also appears in the infobox, I guess that's why.

• Sighted only thrice in the wild — Does this mean the 1910/1990/2019 specimens? If so, do the former two really count as being "sighted in the wild", given that they were acquired from hunters/traders after they had been removed from the wild?

• Good point. Some articles I have say "in the wild" probably because that's where th specimens came from in the first place, like there are no captive individuals. Should we reword it?

• Data Deficient — The linked article doesn't bother to capitalize the Ds.

• Generally the Ds should be capitalized (if we follow the Red List website itself). See Least Concern and Near Threatened for instance.

• A similar comment is made below, but why save the description for last?

• Replied to the comment below.

Taxonomy

When did it acquire the name Vietnam mouse-deer? What about silver-backed chevrotain? No clue really. The issue with this species is it is poorly covered in literature. There are tons of news articles since its sighting in 2019, some even claim it is the world's smallest ungulate with hardly any measurements to look at. Thomas's account and the studies are all I have to rely on, sadly they don't cover smaller details like this. In the past — Meaning between 1910 and 2004? Yes. In a taxonomic revision in 2004 — Who led the revision? Why? Who—The authors of the paper cited inline at the end of the sentence. Mentioning them by name would probably eliminate the slight vagueness but generally just citing the work right after the claim should suffice. Why—if you mean why the taxonomy was revised, I guess it is to understand physical differences among chevrotains as mentioned in the study; mentioning it is not really relevant to this article I think. If you mean why it was classified separately, that is due to differences in coat pattern and skull morphology. Can be mentioned but actually not necessary.

Status and sightings

The four specimens obtained by Thomas — This makes it sound as if the article already mentioned them. Perhaps it's worth adding in "Taxonomy" that Thomas based his description off of four specimens. Right. Fixed. Any details on how Thomas acquired his four, and any details about them (e.g., male/female, juvenile/adult) Oh, missed that out. Added. What happened to the four Thomas specimens? They are probably in a museum somewhere, but I could not find any details. until a Vietnamese-Russian — What year? Good catch. Fixed. other chevrotains — What exactly is a chevrotain? I could add a few words like it is a family of small ungulates, but they might be out of place in an article about a chevrotain. Something like adding a word about what an antelope is in an article about one of the antelopes. I think referring to the chevrotain article would give one a better picture. Follow-up surveys — Who led the surveys? What was the purpose of them? The surveys are cited afterward, led by the authors. Purpose as stated in the studies was to understand the situation of the mouse-deer better especially since it was seen after decades. The IUCN — What's that? Expanded the abbreviation. The Vietnam mouse-deer was listed among the 25 "most wanted lost" species that are the focus of Global Wildlife Conservation's Search for Lost Species initiative. — Why's it so special? And when was the list released? Relevant because as I said the coverage of this species, especially in terms of conservation efforts, is poor. Especially as this list focuses on species that have not been seen in years. Not sure when the list was released though. What I meant by "Why's it so special" was to ask why, of all the possibly extinct species out there, the Vietnam mouse-deer is so interesting that someone would think of it as one of the 25 most-wanted lost species. Anything to link to for "Global Wildlife Conservation"? Nothing really on Wikipedia. I can't seem to find their proper origins or affiliation either, but they are mentioned in quite a lot of places elsewhere on the net. where grey chevrotain had been reported — I think you mean chevrotains? And is the "grey chevrotain" the other type mentioned by the locals? Yes, that was a typo. I have clarified things a bit. The researchers aim to further study — It would be more accurate to say something along the lines of "The researchers said they aimed to further study" Right, fixed.

Physical description

• It seems odd to have the description of the subject of the article appear last. Perhaps it belongs after "Taxonomy"?

• Yes, in most articles. But here I thought it's important to read about the sightings first so that one can understand what are these specimens I have described and why information on all of this is so scanty. Maybe we can shift Ecology to the bottom? Ecology typically comes after Physical description in most articles of this sort so should be okay.

• line of buff — What's buff?

• I mean the color. Should I replace it with yellowish brown or something?

• Nothing to add from the 2019 sightings?

• No new findings as such. In fact they used these previous descriptions to confirm they had indeed seen the species.

• By the end of the section I'm still confused where this mouse-deer fits in among other types of mouse-deer. Perhaps adding a chart like this one would help?

• I would add it if I could but we need studies covering this species that construct such chart by different analyses. I can't find such studies for chevrotains.

References

There's some inconsistency in usage of full first names, or just initials. Fixed. That works, though generally I recommend using full names if possible (and initials only if not possible). Fashionable as it once was to use initials, it can be a complete pain to try to figure out who initialed authors are. 3: OCLC not needed since you have the ISBN. I agree, but it is part of Template:MSW3, and that's how it is used in all articles where I have seen it. 4: The URL (not the doi) gives me an error message. Does it work for you? If not, is it archived on archive.org? Yeah the URL is broken and anyway unnecessary as the doi is open access. Removed. 4–5, 10: Worth using the doi-access= parameter to show whether these require subscriptions or not. I have added it to ref 4 as it is open access. The doi looks broken for 5 but I have provided a separate source for the full article as I have for 10. I think we don't need the parameter there since URLs are assumed to be open? 5: Clicking on the doi brings up a "DOI Not Found" message. I took the DOI from [1], not sure how it is wrong. Anyway I found a PDF to link. It's probably right, but has lapsed or something on the journal's end. When I've emailed journals about that they've generally been able to fix them; for purposes here, however, the link does the trick. 6–7: They're fairly recent articles, are you sure there aren't dois/URLs? I am surprised as well. I searched a lot but there are none I can find. 9: Maybe worth adding an archived link from before it was found. Why, that's brilliant! Done. When you're using {{cite news}}, the name of the newspaper should go in the newspaper= parameter, not the publisher= parameter (see here). Fixed. I will remember that. Another useful parameter for works with multiple authors is lastauthoramp=y. Totally up to you if you want to use it or not. I don't use it really but I will look into that for sure.

Overall

• Interesting article, Sainsf. Got halfway through and realized I had read about this, in the NYT article you cite. Any chance of adding any photographs to the article? --Usernameunique (talk) 07:27, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

• There is no media related to this species on Commons except the range map. We can try adding the camera trap pics from the 2019 paper unless it is copyvio. I am really unfamiliar with media upload though, can you help me out here FunkMonk? You always seem to know the best in things like this :D Sainsf (talk · contribs) 18:32, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Since it was described in 1910, the original description may have some public domain images? Can we track it down? FunkMonk (talk) 18:35, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

The 1910 account did not have any illustrations. I am unable to find any elsewhere. Sainsf (talk · contribs) 18:49, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Ok, next possibility would be to maybe look for some other old PD sources, or ask WP:OTRS permission from someone who has taken a more recent photo. FunkMonk (talk) 23:46, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Given the circumstances, I think there are basically three options: 1) find a way to get a photo of the 1990 specimen (which appears to just be a fur at this point), 2) email the authors of the 2019 paper and ask if they would license one of their photos, or 3) use one of the published 2019 photos as fair use. --Usernameunique (talk) 01:37, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Of course, I rarely take fair use into account anymore because I try to avoid it myself, but in cases like this where we pretty much know there are few images of the subject in existence, it should be fine. FunkMonk (talk) 06:58, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this Usernameunique. I think I have addressed all your concerns. Happy to hear any more suggestions :) Sainsf (talk · contribs) 18:32, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Any update on the reviews, Usernameunique? Sainsf (talk · contribs) 13:23, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Usernameunique: Around 2 weeks now. Sainsf · (How ya doin'?) 18:41, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Sainsf, I'll take a fuller look shortly. In the meantime, there are several comments above—posted immediately after your first ping—which appear to have escaped your notice. Thanks, --Usernameunique (talk) 19:14, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh.. I assumed the issues got resolved but yeah I should have replied. As to the point about initials, I'm afraid I can't find the full names for many of them, and to maintain consistency I have been advised to use just the initials. I really could not find out why this made to the 25 most wanted, seems this is one of the most prominent examples? I couldn't find the exact reason though. Sainsf · (How ya doin'?) 19:25, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

No worries, Sainsf. I probably should have pinged you, and in any event, sorry it's taken so long to finish this up. The only thing that I'm still a bit stuck on is the physical description. It seems weird to save the description of what the subject of the article actually is for last. Even when the description is (finally) given, it is in a chronological ("In 1910 the description was X... In 1980 Y was added to the description...") rather than holistic format ("The description is X&Y..."). I would suggest at least changing the way this section is presented. I would also suggest giving serious thought to moving this section to earlier in the article, although given the challenges—primarily that the Vietnam mouse-deer is, to a certain degree, defined by its set number of sightings—this isn't a deal-breaker. --Usernameunique (talk) 10:51, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Wow, I forgot that point as well after I replied to it. Thanks for the reminder, and please point me to any more issues remaining, you're doing a great job handling so many reviews so a little delay due to that and some misunderstanding is okay :) You see, the first time I worked on a species which was long lost or known only from some historical accounts or a skin and skull was the FA Bluebuck with 2 other editors, where I realized the best way to write this kind of articles is to put the taxonomy and discovery details at the top, followed by accounts from people or studies about the Description and then ecology the way I have worded it here. I thought of swapping the sections but I thought of waiting for your reply and then forgot about it. So I think a swap should fix most issues, but the presentation in Description should probably remain unchanged as this is accepted in an FA as well (though it had many more accounts than just 3 for this one). Cheers, Sainsf · (How ya doin'?) 16:34, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Usernameunique should I go ahead with the changes I proposed or is there anything else? Sainsf · (How ya doin'?) 05:13, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Sainsf, I have to admit to being a bit torn. "Physical description" would seem to be the logical first section to me, but I have little background in the way of convention for such articles. And if the description is to be a chronological description then it doesn't make sense to have it above "Status and sightings." (I'll take your word on convention for chronology, odd as it seems; the relevant section in the giant squid article doesn't start out by saying "In their 1600s accounts, sailors described the giant squid as a man-eating, ship-swallowing, fire-breathing behemoth.") My single biggest suggestion would be to add an image to the article (fair use would do the trick, I think), so that before digging into the details readers at least have an intuitive sense of what's being talked about.

At any rate, that's enough dithering, and these quibbles aren't material to whether this article is, or is not, a good article. It clearly is, so I'm passing it now. --Usernameunique (talk) 05:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you :) There is no fixed convention as such that I know of, just that I followed this in a previous article and it seemed to be the best to follow here where it won't be right to generalize the physical features on the basis of very few specimens known. I am really unfamiliar with photo uploads and licenses, but I will look into it in the future. Sainsf · (How ya doin'?) 08:47, 10 May 2020 (UTC)